The Price of Hannah Blake (8 page)

Chattering, laughing, sometimes shouting boys and girls already filled the dining hall. Cara led Hannah to a table, gestured at a seat, and said, “Here.” Get food and eat. Then follow the others; do what they do,” and she walked away. Hannah stepped after her, “Will I be naked?”

“Do what they do. Do what they tell you.”

Hannah returned to her seat; she didn’t dare look around. There were men here who saw her strip, be squeezed, penetrated—and saw her betrayed into pleasure. They would imagine everything under her light clothing. Would they smirk, wave, smile a special smile? Keeping her eyes focused ahead, she rose and walked to the food. But, once there, she could not decide what to do. Did people here eat meat for breakfast—
every
day? And the eggs, eggs round and white and soft-looking and piled in a big heap? She might try those, again; she had eaten eggs.

“This way,” said a girl’s voice beside her and a hand closed on her biceps. It was gentle, guiding, not dragging. Hannah turned and looked into the smile of a girl she had noticed the day before—tall, with the compact breasts, and intent only on Maria, seemingly unconscious of her nudity. Hannah followed; the girl was taller than Hannah, by a bit, and moved with grace. Hannah saw that her red hair was shorter than the hair of many of the others. The girl’s hips swayed and through her clothes, the same as Hannah’s, her buttocks were outlined, even the crack. Hannah must look that way, too. What could she do? Nothing, it seemed—nothing, yet.

“I’m Charlotte,” said the girl when they stood at the end of the table. “I’m Hannah.” Charlotte smiled; it seemed the most friendly, welcoming face Hannah had encountered since that evening, walking home—in her other life, gone forever, two days ago. Could that be possible? Charlotte filled two trays with food: slippery slices of orange fruit, fresh bread softer than any Hannah ever had seen, gobs of golden butter, black jam, tea. Hannah stared; what would she do with all this? Suddenly she felt famished; she had not eaten in 24 hours except a bit of fruit, a bite of cheese, in Maria’s room. There had been no dinner afterward. Why?

She was famished, and, when they were seated, Charlotte next to her, Hannah ate, simply ate, steadily and greedily—now, for this moment, satisfying, quite wonderful, if the world would end after breakfast. Then, Charlotte began to put food from her tray onto Hannah’s. “No, not your breakfast,” Hannah protested.

When Charlotte smiled she seemed impish, with eyes that glanced a little sideways, and wide, generous lips that pressed together as though suppressing laughter. Her cheeks dimpled deeply. “It is all right, Hannah.” She laughed. “Soon they won’t let you eat this way, weigh you, tell you what you can eat.” She added, “But it’s okay, now. They starve you, at first; enough hunger, and the other thoughts seem unimportant—you know, the avalanche, the rock-slide, in your mind. Your belly belongs to the duke.”

That phrase again. Hannah kept eating. When she stopped, she had formulated a thought. She turned to Charlotte and said, earnestly, “I could never go on a stage naked. It’s wrong. It’s a sin.”

Instead of answering, Charlotte asked, her voice lowered, “Did Charles and the boys come for you last night?”

She knew! Perhaps they all knew?

Hannah nodded, not looking at her, reaching for her tea. Charlotte said, whispering, “And Charles left you creaming in your pants?”

Hannah had no idea what that meant. Well…some idea, as she thought back, now—the slipperiness down there, between her legs, Charles’s fingers sliding around and around. Was that “cream”?

But this young woman, beautiful, so warm to Hannah, looking pure in white, like boys in the great church she once visited on Christmas—boys at the altar. But she spoke so casually, “creaming.”

“They did it to you, too?”

Charlotte grinned. “Two years ago. I never had been touched by a boy. I knew I would die of shame when Charles handled my titties. He touched my cunt and I begged him over and over to stop. But he kept doing it and my cunt began to feel like a volcano! I didn’t have the slightest idea what was happening. How I suffered that night, after they left me; I wish I had known about playing with my clit.”

Hannah was bewildered, but wildly curious. Charlotte could tell her things, what it all meant. She asked, hesitantly, “Did Charles say all those things about your body?”

Charlotte nodded, “Yes, sure. But that doesn’t mean he was insincere, last night. You
are
beautiful, as magnificent as any woman here. Your breasts are bigger than mine, but they jut right out. You
are
lovely.”

Hannah stared hard at the scraps on her plate, blushing. Charlotte asked quietly, “Are you going to fight it, Hannah? Some do, even with the warnings and all. Sure, Charles was playing with your pussy and loving it, but he showed you something—not just told you, showed you—that here anything can be done to you. Because you are the duke’s sweet meat.”

Hannah still said nothing. Charlotte said, again “Some of us had to fight it. There is a terrible price.”

Hannah managed to glance up at her, briefly. “Did you?”

“No, I didn’t because someone talked to me—like I’m talking with you.” She said, “Just glance at the table in front of us, way to the left. You see an African girl?

“Although they took her from a plantation in Jamaica,” she added.

Hannah casually moved her head, as though scanning the hall, and saw an extremely tall, powerful-looking black girl with a profile of perfect beauty. Even from here, Hannah saw the girl’s breasts were very large, but held up the cloth of her blouse like a shelf. It was striking and unbelievable, in public. Hannah’s eyes came back and she looked into Charlotte’s face. She nodded.

Charlotte said, voice low, “She told me when I got here. I’m grateful to her. Her name is Myra. She fought from the start, literally fought; she’s like a lioness. They didn’t give her to the guards right away; but they could get her to do nothing.”

Hannah had been thinking that. Refuse to do anything? Fight? Never commit the sin of cooperating, of going along? She looked into Charlotte’s face intently, listening.

“They gave her to the guards. The guards leave you alone, here; in fact, you don’t see them much. They would not dare to bother you; you belong to the duke.”

Hannah nodded almost imperceptibly. Charlotte said, “But when they give a girl—or a boy,” she added, thoughtfully—”to them, they just devour you. Every crumb. I couldn’t believe what Myra was telling me. Like nothing I ever heard, imagined, dreamed.”

Hannah was shivering. But she had to understand this.

“It was a guardroom, somewhere by the outer wall. About five men,” Myra said. “Two wardresses brought her there, struggling, and the men dragged her in. The room was bright, like a lighted stage or an operating room. They stripped her, of course; the women here had not been able to do it. But two minutes after the men had her, she was naked, screaming and pleading. They tied her hands behind her back, pushed her to her knees.

“She knew about being raped, she was born the daughter of a former slave and she knew all about rape. She thought they would do her right away. Instead, they shoved a funnel up her arse and filled her with warm oil, filled her until she was shrieking with the cramps. She said she forgot entirely that she was naked. Forgot everything but her belly. When they had filled her, they shoved in a bung…” Charlotte paused, “You know?”

Hannah shook her head; her face felt stiff, and inside her heart beat so rapidly it made her nauseous.

“A cork,” that Charlotte. “They forced a huge cork into her arsehole so no oil could escape. All Myra wanted to do, or cared about, or could think about was taking a shit. Her body was screaming for it.”

The language again so rude, “taking a shit.” Hannah barely could see in her mind’s eye what Charlotte’s words described. She did not want to see. Bright light, the big black body on the floor, men standing, watching, listening to her shriek and plead.

“One of the guards grabbed her shoulder and put his mouth close to her ear. He shouted—I won’t use the words—that she must satisfy them all before the cork came out. Myra said she couldn’t stand it one more second; she thought the pain was so bad she couldn’t even get off the floor.

“Then all the men had dropped their trousers. And Myra could see their pricks standing up; her tears were so heavy she couldn’t see much detail, but she saw the pricks. She cared about nothing, she said, nothing, but ending the pain.

“Its lucky she had seen things in Jamaica. I wouldn’t have known what to do even I wanted to do it. I wouldn’t have. But she did. She rolled to her knees, screaming, and scrambled on her knees to one of the men. She forced herself to rise higher on her knees to reach him. She said that to straighten her body almost made her faint. I think if she hadn’t been who she is, she would have fainted.

“She did everything. Her hands were tied, but she has the most wonderful lips. She couldn’t do it fast enough. She pressed against the man’s knees with her titties and rubbed herself on him. Looking up, she hardly could see his face through the tears of pain.

“Finally, the man grabbed her head and started shoving himself until he was done.”

Hannah’s mind veered crazily. She had to understand. What was this…the man’s seed. In the woman’s mouth. Hannah kept nodding, her gaze locked on Charlotte’s face.

“So then she crawled to the next man, screaming with each move; it had gotten worse and worse; she said it was as though they filled her belly with oil, and then started boiling it inside her. Like fire inside her. She became dizzy. But the men were getting more excited, now, watching, hearing her. Her body is magnificent, and her face. So she did the same thing to the next man, and it was faster.

“They knew she couldn’t last long, without fainting, no matter how much she wanted to. The last man came over to her; she says she could not have crawled to him. He kept pulling her head up shoving it down. Do you know what?”

Hannah shook her head, gulping. “Myra says she was grateful to that man. He did it for her because he knew she was finished. She said her face felt aflame; she was sweating like she used to sweat, as a little girl, in the sugarcane field. With one hand, the man was squeezing her breasts, but she really didn’t notice.

“She said she rolled onto the floor and tried to die. Nothing happened, although she yelled and pleaded with them. Said anything; she would do anything if they took it out. But they only watched…

“Myra said she could not decide if the pain of lying there, dying, was better than the pain of getting to her feet. But she did; she got to her feet. She turned her back to the last man she had done, bent over, so she was opened wide, and kept saying, ‘Please, please, please…’

They pulled it out. She said her bowels exploded, right then, standing right there. They were laughing. She collapsed, oil and shit firing out of her. She rolled and rolled, shrieking, but finally it was better. She was empty. The cramps still came, she said, and were worse than any pain she ever had before that day—but it was nothing.”

“Oh, God, no. No,” whispered Hannah. “No.”

“She thought they would rape she. She didn’t really care, she says. But they didn’t. Apparently, their orders were to break her, break her good and forever, and stop.

“When they brought her and tossed her into her room, I went to her first. They hadn’t cleaned her up. There was dried cum around her lips; she smelled bad, too. I cleaned her up, then sat holding her, thinking she could cry, but she didn’t. She held back nothing of the story, I don’t think—what could there be? But she never speaks of what she thinks about how they hurt her. She’s one of the best, here. The duke loves plays about forcing women, but especially black women. She gets those roles. He asks for her, later—or gives her to a special guest. She never talks about it.”

Hannah’s glance slid to Myra, who was rising, now. She was like a statue, straight, shoulders back, head erect. She had no expression, though, Hannah thought. Yet, her movements as she carried her tray were like the ease of a Devon pony frolicking in a pasture.

A loud bell rang twice, and Hannah started. “That’s it,” said Charlotte. “Just finished in time. You’ll think about it, won’t you?”

Hannah wondered how in her whole life, ever, she would forget a single image Charlotte’s words had conveyed. Now, for her whole life, she would know something worse, much worse, than anything she ever had imagined as a girl or young woman. It always would be there. If she had been less frightened, less stunned by the exploding scenes in her mind, she thought, she might have felt very sad because now she would be different.

All around her was movement, talking, so she looked up. All of them were crowding through the door. She noticed Charlotte had taken both trays, and returned, frowning down at her. Charlotte said, “I’m telling you, as Myra told me.”

When Hannah did not move, Charlotte started for the door. She looked back and said, “You aren’t starting already are you? Being late is a serious offense, here.”

Hannah almost knocked over her chair, she stood up so quickly—stood up propelled by terror. She almost ran after Charlotte.

They were trotting along corridors, two dozen of them, ahead of her, talking, laughing. Hannah hurried after Charlotte, her only friend; and, once, Charlotte glanced back and smiled. They flocked down the stairs and into the dressing room and began pulling off their clothes. With only two garments, it didn’t take long. Trousers and blouses were flung onto hooks and Hannah was surrounded by naked men and women. She saw Charlotte’s long, delicate, bare back, the tight buttocks. Maybe she had never noticed how wonderful were the bodies of women, thought Hannah.